Compassionate Use: The Family & Patient's Perspective

By Julie Deardorff, Ph.D., MPH, Contributing Editor

“The one thing I wish could have been different with the compassionate use program is that I would have known about it earlier,” says Nicole Pierson. Nicole’s son Gavin, who was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor when he was 5 years old, is alive today because he received IBRANCE (palbociclib) via compassionate use from Pfizer. Although IBRANCE didn’t cure him, it did prolong his life long enough until a new type of laser technology became available which ablated his tumor.